Veronica

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Delamar-Naughton.png
Veronica Delamar, played by Naturi Naughton
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Captain Teo, played by random guy found on Internet

Unknown date in 2505

Undocumented Debris Field

Blue Sun

Poco sighed and carefully stretched each of the bruised muscles in his legs and back. The aches of the day were slowly fading away as his body eased into languid satisfaction. Next to him, Veronica stirred sleepily as he methodically worked through each knot in his neck. Still lost in the relaxing the last of his pain away, his hand wandered into the drawer of his nightstand on its own accord, fishing for the familiar pack of Blue Suns.


Wham! Poco yelped and half leapt out of bed as Veronica slammed the metal drawer shut on his hand. He cussed again as his head cracked into the low bulkhead and snatched his hand back, all relaxation evaporating as Veronica rolled over and gazed up at him impishly.


“After all that,” she mocked, “I’m surprised you have the energy to light one of those.”


Gorrammit darlin’, it wasn’t even on purpose. Hell, there aren’t even any in there. Threw them all away like you asked.”


“Good,” she replied, levering herself up on her elbows in the small bunk. “I detest making love to an ash tray.”


“You seem’ta have gotten over it. Maybe it’s one of them…acquired tastes?”


“Like a fine spoiled wine…?”


“Now wait a minute, first you nearly break my hand and now you’re goin’ and insultin’ my vintage? After the day we’ve had, I deserve a bit better than that!”


“Oh,” she replied arching an eyebrow. “All of your aches and pains are coming back, are they?” She laughed at his overly dramatic nod and pulled Poco back down into her arms. “Well, let’s see what we can do about that, shall we?”




Later, Poco hovered on the edge of consciousness trying to figure out what the hell had happened in the past few months. He’d taken up on this salvage ship out of desperation, as usual, on the run from a broken deal. Captain Keo was an abusive bastard, but his reputation meant that no one crossed him. Not the best situation, but Poco’s life was essentially a string of bad decisions with worse consequences. Until Veronica.


She had walked through his defenses like they weren’t even there. Smart, beautiful, and likely the best sensor array operator in the ‘verse, she’d snared him almost immediately. At the moment it didn’t matter that Keo lashed out with a baton every now and again. Right now, nothing could be wrong.


“Tony? Tony,” Veronica shook him again, pulling him back from the verge of dreams. “Tony. We need to talk.”


Those few scant months were the longest stretch of happiness in Poco’s twenty years of life and they ended with those four words. He squinted up at her groggily, her head and naked shoulders silhouetted by the harsh light of the small quarters.


Dread built up in his stomach as he spoke, “Sure…what’s….about what?”


“I…,” Veronica bit her lip and closed her eyes, “I’m…pregnant.”


Relief flooded through Poco and he threw his head back into the rough linens, laughing so loudly that Veronica had to stifle him frantically, “Shut up! Shut up you oaf! Do you want to wake up the entire gorram ship?!”


“Oh darlin’,” he gasped once he stifled his laughter, “I thought it was somethin’ serious. We can take care of that…”


Veronica drew back sharply. Hurt. Wounded. “I don’t want to ‘take care of it,’” she spat.


“Oh,” Poco replied. Understanding slowly dawned. Did he want this? Was his destiny a brood of snot-nosed brats and a steady life in a boring spaceport somewhere? No, he thought slowly, but did he want her? The answer came quickly.


“We have to leave,” Poco said.


“I know,” she replied.


“He beats us. If he hits you wrong…we have to leave.”


“I said, I know,” she quirked her head at him. “Are you sure? I don’t expect you to save me. I’m not looking to be rescued. This is my choice. I’m choosing something better for my…our…child. Is this what you want?”


“I want you,” he said without hesitation. “First thing I think I’ve ever wanted enough to get hurt over.”


She smiled sadly and they put their heads together, planning their escape into the early morning.




Poco nervously turned the long-range navigation module over in his hands as he hurried down the corridor toward the shuttle bay. He’d been making minor modifications to one of the salvage scouts all week, and they’d stashed just enough food in the unused medical supplies box to make it planet-side. From there they’d just have to stay ahead of Keo’s anger and hope for the best.


He rounded the corner into the shuttle bay and stopped suddenly, sensor module tumbling from his hand. A scene from his nightmares was laid out before him, painted in the harsh emergency lighting of the hangar: Keo with his hulking first mate were standing over the crumpled body of Veronica.


“Ah. Poco,” Keo said as he casually wiped blood off his baton onto Veronica’s jumpsuit. “Were you going somewhere?”


“Boss. If you’ve hurt her, I swear—“


“I have hurt her,” Keo interrupted. “Perhaps…badly? It’s difficult to tell with all the blood. What do you swear?”


With a wordless roar, Poco rushed at Keo, but was stopped short by the first mate’s fist slamming into his stomach. Coughing, Poco collapsed next to Veronica, close enough to hear her rattling breaths. Thank God, Poco thought, in too much pain to speak. The first mate kicked him savagely as Poco tried to crawl closer.


“You wanted to leave,” Keo said distantly, barely heard over a rushing sound in Poco’s ears. “All you had to do was ask. There was no need to steal from us. Unfortunately, we are in the middle of a job, so we will just have to drop you off here. You understand, yes?”


Poco managed to roll over and weakly spit at Keo before the baton struck him across the face and he knew no more.




Poco awoke hours later, on a derelict freighter, slumped against Veronica. Groaning, he scanned the decking around him. It was the ship they had salvaged earlier that day. No working engines or life support. The air he was breathing was left from Keo’s pressurization.


Tenderly, he lowered Veronica to the deck. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked confused. One of her pupils was fully dilated and she coughed harshly before trailing off into a wheeze.


“Where…?” she asked.


“Alive. Alive and away from that bastard,” he responded around split lips. “We’re going to be OK. We’re only a few hours from planet-side. I’ll get us home.” He paused, realizing he was babbling. “I’ll get all of us home,” he said firmly, placing his hand on her abdomen.


“Tony…” she wheezed.


“I know. I know. I love you too,” he said, but she was already unconscious.


Coughing and bringing up blood, Poco started to work.




Wednesday, 10 Oct 2525

On Delilah

En-route to Deadwood


Gasping for air, Poco woke from the dream in a cold sweat. It was the dead of night. Distantly he heard the mewling screams of the good Doctor “sleeping.” Apparently it was a good night for bad dreams. Sighing, he swung his feet over the side of the bed and fished his cigarettes out of his shoe.


Fire flared briefly as he puffed the cigarette to life. No matter how many times he had that dream, he never got the freighter working fast enough. Every time he relived it, he failed her again. Every time he dreamt, he was reminded of how much it hurt to connect. He cradled his head in his hands until his heart stopped pounding.


Once his heart was back into rhythm, he could hear that Delilah’s was about two cycles off.


Muttering curses, he made his way across the rickety gangplank to engineering, pulling on a shirt but not bothering with pants or shoes. He stopped at the doorway, noticing a small project Nuri had been working on, tucked away behind an access panel. She always came to him when she needed to work on her shivs in peace. He hoped she was OK.


“Wonder if she knew, bein’ a reader and all.” he muttered to himself as he started slowly adjusting the injectors, pausing after each small turn of the multi-tool. “Hope she did,” he whispered as the engines eased into alignment. “Would’a been proud to be her pa…minus the mind reading and people eatin’, 'course.”



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